Lolita

There is mathematics, but then there is the metamathematics of mathematician Kurt Godel.

There are philosophies, but then there is the metaphilosophy of Hegel's "Phenomenology."

There are ethics, and then there is metaethics.

There is a formal study of ethics, with professors and books, so obviously, since they analyze and compare different ethical systems, there is an "ethics of ethics."

We must never be too hasty to agree to anything. Santayana said that doubt and scepticism are like our virginity; we must not be anxious and willing to surrender it to the first person (or idea) which somes along.

There are those who feel that things are simple, straight forward, cut and dry, and they are anxious to quickly arrive at agreement with "yes or no" questions, and they feel vulnerable and out of control if they cannot quickly pidgeonhole issues.

Then there are others who want to delve deeper, to peel away ever greater levels of complexity, and hold judgment in abeyance.


I am thinking now about Samuel Clemens and Harriet Beecher Stow. In their time and society, slavery was legal, and there was a certain "ethos" in place.

The artist/author stands back and surveys the ethics of time and places, and has the "vision" to see through or beyond it, and critique it with a metaethics.
Each work of art has its own ethics, or metaethics, but it is often attacked by its contemporary society and culture.

People attacked Picasso because "women do not have three breasts, and certainly not on the forehead." Well, for Picasso, breaking THEIR rules became his rule.

People tend to attack, criticize and reject what is new and different, but gradually it becomes accepted, and ultimately it becomes classical and perhaps irreproachable.

Yet, sometimes we face the risk of delving too deep into things, so much so that we cannot find the way back home... or even forget why we have been delving, losing the sight of the question and answer all at the same time.

I will take drowning in the depths over dog-paddling in the shallows any day. I like taking risks. But that's just "me." Besides, digging deep is hard work, and sometimes there are rewards.

I am reminded of the perennial feud between Hemingway and Faulkner. Faulkner said, "Hemingway was never known to send his reader to a dictionary." Hemingway had his own rebuttal to Faulkner. But Faulkner also criticized Hemingway, saying "He found a certain niche, voice, style, at which he was quite excellent. BUT, he never ventured out of that style. For me, it is better to strive for something beyond, even if it means failure."

I suppose I am more of a Faulkner than a Hemingway.

What can I say. We live in a free society where we are free even to be fools, if that is what freedom leads to. But I do not demand that anyone follows me, or that they agree with me.

I don't believe I have in any of my posting to date told anyone what they should or should not do or think, or insisted that they agree with me (at least I sincerely hope I have not.)

Being different in our views makes neither of us fools but simply... different.

Consider how this thread on Nabokov's "Lolita" started.

Some people were reading it when suddenly society (the moral majority which are neither moral nor a majority) looked over their shoulder and said, "Oh, how wicked of you to read such a book, since it deals with pedophilia."

Seems pretty cut-and-dry, "yes or no", true or false. Surely you are not in favor of pedophilia! Surely you do not approve of genocide! Tsk, Tsk, how politically incorrect of you!

In school, we used to taunt one another with "damned if you do and damned if you dont" questions, like "does your mother know you do wicked things when your alone?" (I cleaned up the example). The charm of such a question is that it poses itself as a simple "yes or no" question, but it is not a valid "yes or no" question. If I give you a cup of tea and say "do you care for sugar, yes or no?" then that is a valid yes or no question. But then, if you were to have ME to tea, and present me with such an allegedly simple and straight-forward "yes or no" question, I would protest and say: "Well, I am diabetic, so I cannot have sugar, but I want my tea to taste sweet, so I request aspartamine (but not splenda)", but THEN when I realize that the tea you are giving me is Lapsang Suchong, with its smokey flavor, ruined by sweeteners, I would put back the packet of "Equal" and take the tea straight.
Wittgenstein was correct to observe that there are some things we must pass over in silence.



Nothing that is of profound philosophical or artistic or theological significance lends its self to simple "yes or no" or "true or false."

When we look at the brilliance of Nabokov, his language, his message, and we look deeply into the personality of the characters, and then we say "hey this might be of great artistic importance with some profound message, perhaps its not so pornographic after all."

You ask me for a simple "yes or no" but I have never been a simple "yes or no" kind of person. That is part of my "style." If you will notice, I never once use any kind of "smiley" icon. Its "not my style." I want to depend solely upon words and ideas to make my points. I rarely address myself to particular individuals, and solicit their personal opinion or agreement. I feel that one great error of our culture and heritage is using common majority consensus as a touchstone for truth or justice. I am preoccupied with ideas, not individuals or personalities. In a brief hundred years from now, all of us who post here will be dead. It shall not matter if Sally agreed with Joe. If any of our words, posts survive, then it is the words and ideas which shall stand on their own merit or demerit in the minds of future readers, yet unborn.

In 1998 I had a dialogue with a fanatical Christian which I posted
under the title:

Beware the Simple Answer YES or NO

http://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan/page006.htm

In that dialogue, I attempt to explain what I see as the deficiencies in "yes or no" questions and a linear type of Aristotelian syllogistic reasoning of the form: A implies B (wouldn't you agree, "yes or no?"), B implies C.... X implies Y (ohhh and I already got you to say yes to "Q implies R" so dont try to wriggle out of this now).... and finally Y implies Z, so therefore I have forced you to agree that God exists (or some such conclusion.)

I do not see the world in terms of "yes or no" or "true or false."

I see the world in terms of an ancient Jain logic term, "anekantavada" (sometimes called "many-pointedness") which simply translates as "no one single point of view." It means that any attempt to capture the "truth" in words is but a partial statement of the truth as seen from only one perspective. Wittgenstein got into this sort of thing.

In the ninth century C.E. a theologian by the name of Shankaracharya arose in India, and converted all of India back to Hinduism from Buddhism. Shankaracharya wrote one hymn which starts "Oh Thou, from whom all words recoil." Apophatic means "speaking away" from a subject. The writings of so-called Dionysius the Areopagite gave apophatic theology a firm foundation. It is difficult to say what something (such as God, or Justice) IS, so we shall be apophatic in our approach and say all that IT IS NOT, and perhaps somehow we shall sneak up on God, or truth, or beauty or justice just as calculus sneaks up on an incommensurable area by approaching the limit of an infinite sum.

As I reconsider the original phrase which started all this, namely "Art can have no ethic," I see room for refinement, qualification.

Indeed, an author and a work has its own internal ethics, physics, karma.
A book might be saying "its ok to be gay" for example. When we say "Art can have no ethic" I think what we are really trying to say is that the prevailing arbitrary "ethic" of our particular society and times has no right to silence the artistic voice. This is freedom of speech in a democracy. Books such as Ulysses and Tropic of Cancer were "banned in Boston" until around the 1950s when certain high court decisions proclaimed that it was "ok" to publish such books. In the early 1900s, a certain woman in America was publishing Ulysses in serialized form in her magazine. The scene which got her in trouble with the law was a beautiful passage describing a young man and woman at a fireworks display. As the young woman leaned farther and farther back to follow the course of a roman candle in the sky, the young man was peeking up her dress and admiring her charms. By todays standards the passage seems harmless.

The mistake of the "moral majority" and all those Texan fundamentalists is that they equate our democratic republic only with "majority rule." What they conveniently forget is that our Constitution is as much about protecting the rights of the minority as it is about soliciting the consensus of the majority.

We may dislike pornography, but when we try to suppress it, we run the risk of replacing it with something far more filthy and ugly, namely the repressive book-burning mentality of a theocracy with blasphemy laws, enforcing an external morality with torture and amputation.

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I have re-read this entire thread a number of times this morning (which started for me at 4:30am and it is now 9am)

I see a statement posted by Rechka:

"Is fiction, art in this case, subject to ethics?"

A possible refinement is "SHOULD fiction be subject to ethics." OF COURSE, it IS subject, or should I say subjectED to the ethics of the moral majority all the time or to the tastes of whining critics who have never written anything of their own which is profound. Everytime a manuscript is rejected by a publisher, it has been sujected to MONITARY ethics. This Internet is kind of a revolution to all this censorship because it allows any fool (like me) to get a site for a few dollars a year, and speak their mind to the world, infiltrating the search engines.

Since this thread has gone on and on and on, I thought I'd add a poetic mixture to the fire. It may cause the thread to blaze up; it may even put an end to the fire. Let us see:
__________________________________________________ _ :brow:

PROVOCATIVE AND INFLAMMATORY

Sappho shows that love poetry is how Western personality defines itself; some loved person exists in this poetry primarily as a focus of the poet's consciousness. This 'love' is essentially: infatuation, fascination, a bittersweet state. It is like a storm, sudden and passing. The imagery is vivid and luminous, sometimes boiling with ecstatic elemental forms. For poets like Yeats "women's haunting beauty is the heart of life's mystery", or, like Roethke, she is an unknowable Muse ruling an oozy sexual matrix. From Sappho to our time there is a tormented history of Western 'love' available for our study. -Ron Price with thanks to Camille Paglia, Vamps and Tramps: New Essays, Viking Press, 1994, pp. 319-326. :cool:


They came at me right from
an early age: the most beautiful
things imaginable, pierced my
brain, penetrated my inmost
being: sultry, smoldering,
caresses on hot summer days,
tortured affairs in my dreams;
I must have been dependent
even then on some force that
threatened to blow me away
with lust and rage and that now
follows me into my old age,
something so utterly provocative,
vibrations and signals, inflammatory. :goof:

Ron Price
20 June 1998 :banana:

As a fiction writer, Russian-born author Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) was known for his artistry, word play and descriptive detail. His novels include "Despair," (1937) "Laughter In The Dark" (1938) and "Pale Fire" (1962) but his most famous book was "Lolita" (1955). He also wrote many short stories (best collection "Details Of A Sunset and Other Stories") and poetry.

Excerpt from "Lolita," which depicts a very taboo subject (pederasty) without resorting to obscene language or description. The novel's mixture of tragedy and subtle comic genius have led to it being widely considered one of the best fiction works of the 20th century:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns ...

Annabel was, like the writer, of mixed parentage: half-English, half-Dutch, in her case. I remember her features far less distinctly today than I did a few years ago, before I knew Lolita. There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as: "honey-colored skin," "thin arms," "brown bobbed hair," "long lashes," "big bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita).

Let me therefore primly limit myself, in describing Annabel, to saying she was a lovely child a few months my junior. Her parents were old friends of my aunt's, and as stuffy as she. They had rented a villa not far from Hotel Mirana. Bald brown Mr. Leigh and fat, powdered Mrs. Leigh (born Vanessa van Ness). How I loathed them! At first, Annabel and I talked of peripheral affairs. She kept lifting handfuls of fine sand and letting it pour through her fingers. Our brains were turned the way those of intelligent European preadolescents were in our day and set, and I doubt if much individual genius should be assigned to our interest in the plurality of inhabited worlds, competitive tennis, infinity, solipsism and so on. The softness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain. She wanted to be a nurse in some famished Asiatic country; I wanted to be a famous spy.

All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other ... Among some treasures I lost during the wanderings of my adult years, there was a snapshot taken by my aunt which showed Annabel, her parents and the staid, elderly, lame gentleman, a Dr. Cooper, who that same summer courted my aunt, grouped around a table in a sidewalk café. Annabel did not come out well, caught as she was in the act of bending over her chocolate glacé and her thin bare shoulders and the parting in her hair were about all that could be identified (as I remember that picture) amid the sunny blur into which her lost loveliness graded; but I, sitting somewhat apart from the rest, came out with a kind of dramatic conspicuousness: a moody, beetle-browed boy in a dark sport shirt and well-tailored white shorts, his legs crossed, sitting in profile, looking away. That photograph was taken on the last day of our fatal summer and just a few minutes before we made our second and final attempt to thwart fate. Under the flimsiest of pretexts (this was our very last chance, and nothing really mattered) we escaped from the cafe to the beach, and found a desolate stretch of sand, and there, in the violet shadow of some red rocks forming a kind of cave, had a brief session of avid caresses, with somebody's lost pair of sun-glasses for only witness. I was on my knees, and on the point of possessing my darling, when two bearded bathers, the old man of the sea and his brother, came out of the sea with exclamations of ribald encouragement, and four months later she died of typhus in Corfu.

I leaf again and again through these miserable memories, and keep asking myself, was it then, in the glitter of that remote summer, that the rift in my life began; or was my excessive desire for that child only the first evidence of an inherent singularity? When I try to analyze my own cravings, motives, actions and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundless alternatives and which causes each visualized route to fork and re-fork without end in the maddeningly complex prospect of my past. I am convinced, however, that in a certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel.

I also know that the shock of Annabel's death consolidated the frustration of that nightmare summer, made of it a permanent obstacle to any further romance throughout the cold years of my youth. The spiritual and the physical had been blended in us with a perfection that must remain incomprehensible to the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained youngsters of today. Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange affinities. The same June of the same year (1919) a stray canary had fluttered into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries. Oh, Lolita, had you loved me thus!

I have reserved for the conclusion of my "Annabel" phase the account of our unsuccessful first tryst. One night, she managed to deceive the vicious vigilance of her family. In a nervous and slender-leaved mimosa grove at the back of their villa we found a perch on the ruins of a low stone wall. Through the darkness and the tender trees we could see the arabesques of lighted windows which, touched up by the colored inks of sensitive memory, appear to me now like playing cards--presumably because a bridge game was keeping the enemy busy ... I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own ...

I recall the scent of some kind of toilet powder--I believe she stole it from her mother's Spanish maid --a sweetish, lowly, musky perfume. It mingled with her own biscuity odor, and my senses were suddenly filled to the brim; a sudden commotion in a nearby bush prevented them from overflowing--and as we drew away from each other, and with aching veins attended to what was probably a prowling cat, there came from the house her mother's voice calling her, with a rising frantic note--and Dr. Cooper ponderously limped out into the garden. But that mimosa grove--the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since--until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.

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Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

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A worthy contender for the title of the best paragraph ever penned in English Literature.

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Originally Posted by EAP

A worthy contender for the title of the best paragraph ever penned in English Literature.

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I agree. Nabokov should be an inspiration for writers whose first language is not English. Although he spoke some English before he left Russia, he didn't begin writing in English until years later.

I've tried to read Lolita twice, and failed both times. I found it too disturbing, to the point of making me feel physically ill every time I picked up the book. Nabakov understood the power of language; sometimes metaphor and insinuation paint more upsetting images than blatant obscenity ever could. Not that he didn't resort to it; my professor provided translations of some of the passages not in English, and they're not pleasant.

I've read a couple of Nabakov's short stories, in addition, and I agree that he is one of the most impressive writers I have ever had the displeasure of reading. His grasp of language is uncanny, even before you take into account that English was his third (after Russian and French). Still, I always got the creeping feeling that he was a sociopath; anti-social. I can accept the assertion that he was not a pedaphile, but only by believing that he was so removed from human emotion as to not be disturbed by the things he was writing. I wrote something about it for class, with citations that I can't recall. But I do recall having the distinct impression that his way of addressing emotions was more in the manner of objective, clinical observation than that of someone who had experienced them. Certainly, a good writer can remove himself from the scene to paint it objectively, but he also immerses himself in the characters' emotion so that he might write from their point of view. Nabakov's removal seems so total as to almost seem like mimickry; he describes people in misery with an almost quizzical-dog expression. He knows people act this way, but his manner suggests no empathy with the emotion behind the action.

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Originally Posted by emily655321

Nabokov understood the power of language; sometimes metaphor and insinuation paint more upsetting images than blatant obscenity ever could. Not that he didn't resort to it; my professor provided translations of some of the passages not in English, and they're not pleasant.

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Just when I thought you had a head on your shoulders ... Believe it or not Emily, you will encounter some things in life that are not very pleasant. It's unavoidable, so you might as well get used to the idea.

As to the professor translating passages to titillate his class with prurient content, I think you should worry more about his motives than Nabokov's.

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Originally Posted by starrwriter

Just when I thought you had a head on your shoulders ... Believe it or not Emily, you will encounter some things in life that are not very pleasant. It's unavoidable, so you might as well get used to the idea.

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What's your point?

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Originally Posted by starrwriter

As to the professor translating passages to titillate his class with prurient content, I think you should worry more about his motives than Nabokov's.

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Umm... yeah. 'Kay. Sometimes understanding a book and academic discussion come before titilation, Starr. It was a course on the history of literary censorship, and the point was to illustrate how Nabokov circumvented the censors by putting the "worst stuff" in another language. Nabakov's is a good study in just how un-titilating sexual content can be.

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Originally Posted by starrwriter

I agree. Nabokov should be an inspiration for writers whose first language is not English. Although he spoke some English before he left Russia, he didn't begin writing in English until years later.

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English was Nabokov's first language. He didn't start to learn Russian until he was eight. French was his second language.

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Originally Posted by PeterL

English was Nabokov's first language. He didn't start to learn Russian until he was eight. French was his second language.

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Really? Wow, I did not know that. The facts must have gotten very mixed up in my head.

How old were Humbert Humbert and his little girlfriend at the beach? I know that Lolita is 12 when he meets her, but I dont think he says how old he and the girl were. If they were 8 or 9, it might be a little more disturbing than if they were 13 and 14, or even 12 and 13 is not so bad. As for the entire story being disturbing...I found The Lovely Bones to be alot worse.

I remember they were very young. Definitely pre-pubescent.

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Originally Posted by PeterL

English was Nabokov's first language. He didn't start to learn Russian until he was eight. French was his second language.

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I stand corrected. How odd that a Russian boy wouldn't be taught Russian as his first language. His parents must have been Anglophiles.

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Originally Posted by emily655321

Still, I always got the creeping feeling that he was a sociopath; anti-social. I can accept the assertion that he was not a pedaphile, but only by believing that he was so removed from human emotion as to not be disturbed by the things he was writing. I wrote something about it for class, with citations that I can't recall. But I do recall having the distinct impression that his way of addressing emotions was more in the manner of objective, clinical observation than that of someone who had experienced them. Certainly, a good writer can remove himself from the scene to paint it objectively, but he also immerses himself in the characters' emotion so that he might write from their point of view. Nabakov's removal seems so total as to almost seem like mimickry; he describes people in misery with an almost quizzical-dog expression. He knows people act this way, but his manner suggests no empathy with the emotion behind the action.

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This is an interesting viewpoint. When I read Lolita I was aware of a sense of detachment but put this down to style rather than a lack of empathy on Nabokov's part. The book shows a deep understanding of Humbert Humbert's feelings and emotions. An understanding that I suggest could only have come from someone with a highly developed empathic sense. I took his detachment to be a deliberate ploy in tackling such controversial subject matter; an attempt to remove any hint of sensationalism or titillation.

Not having read any other works by the author (Pale Fire has been recommended to me recently and is on my 'to read' list) I can't comment on whether this is Nabokov's usual tone or merely one adopted for the book. I would be interested in hearing other reader's viewpoints on this.

I also didn't know that english was his first language - Thanks for that PeterL.

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Originally Posted by starrwriter

I stand corrected. How odd that a Russian boy wouldn't be taught Russian as his first language. His parents must have been Anglophiles.

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As I understand it, in his later years Nabokov also found it odd. His parents were aristocrats, so anything non-Russian was better.

I read it when I was 16 and I found it weird...really slow (which is respected in the movies...) and heavy in the language (I learnt more than a few very high Italian words that I have never heard/seen after that) but it was a translation...the quick read I gave to the passage above seems definitely more fascinating.

I'm kinda disappointed at the news of him being taught English as a first language, and I will try to find out if it's true... cos it was some kind of example to me in mastery of a foreign language... Incidentally, my teachers of Russian also mentioned him as a native Russian speaker... maybe that fact that PeterL quoted is kinda unknown... It somehow makes sense, though it was one century later than the French-mania and English was a kinda odd choice, but as starr said, maybe his parents were anglo-maniacs...

This Penn State university site is about the The International Vladimir Nabokov Society

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/nabsoc.htm

This page (and next one) has a bio on him :)

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/bio.htm

It says that Nabakov, born into an aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, Russia, described himself as "a perfectly normal trilingual child in a family with a large library".

He first learned English and French, then Russian.

It is mentioned that Lolita was first published in France in 1955.

Just wanted to add: it appears that when he (first) started to write it was well-received, but not outside of of the Russian-speaking population of Berlin and Paris.

He wasn't interested in writing in a socio-political vein, like many of his peers; he was criticised for his lack of `Russianness' and decided writing in English would give him best exposure and income.

After moving to New York City, and between the ages of 45-55, he composed Lolita whilst vacationing in the American Rocky Mountains, where he also pursued his butterfly studies :D

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English was Nabokov's first language. He didn't start to learn Russian until he was eight. French was his second language.

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I didn’t know this either – interesting info., because I remember being in awe of the fact that anyone could write so beautifully in his or her second language when I read "Lolita". (By the way, I think English was not Joseph Conrad’s first language? Maybe I am wrong about this also?)

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Originally Posted by Sami

I didn’t know this either – interesting info., because I remember being in awe of the fact that anyone could write so beautifully in his or her second language when I read "Lolita". (By the way, I think English was not Joseph Conrad’s first language? Maybe I am wrong about this also?)

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I can't remember where I found that item. I looked at information about Nabokov from many sources last year, but it fits the other information that I have seen about him and about Russian aristocrats.

There's a good chance that you are right about Conrad. I just looked it up and found that he "learned English before the age of 21".

Just a tidbit...apparently Nabokov was an avid devotee of Flaubert's, particularly his book "Madame Bovary", which he even taught at a university (there was an entire foreward about it in the copy of "Madame Bovary" that I read).

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Originally Posted by Sami

I didn’t know this either – interesting info., because I remember being in awe of the fact that anyone could write so beautifully in his or her second language when I read "Lolita". (By the way, I think English was not Joseph Conrad’s first language? Maybe I am wrong about this also?)

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I think you're right about Conrad cos he was Polish.

...actually, I'm looking it up in my copy of Heart of Darkness and it says he was born in what is now Ukraine, at that time a Polish province under Russian rule. And his name was Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. He started to work as a sailor when he was 15 and in that way ended up at some point on a British ship and then he started to learn English. According to the book, he was twenty, and he then said he would have never written anything if he hadn't known English.

Impressive, as Heart of Darkness was one of the most challenging books I've read in English, linguistically as well.

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Originally Posted by ArcherSnake

How old were Humbert Humbert and his little girlfriend at the beach? I know that Lolita is 12 when he meets her, but I dont think he says how old he and the girl were. If they were 8 or 9, it might be a little more disturbing than if they were 13 and 14, or even 12 and 13 is not so bad. As for the entire story being disturbing...I found The Lovely Bones to be alot worse.

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Humbert was 13 wheh he met Annabel, who is described as 'a few months [his] junior' in the book.

Just finished reading the book. My thoughts and feelings are very mixed: The story is a rather upsetting one but the language is so breathtaking that it kept me reading. Humbert's intelligence, wit and command of language are such that the reader is almost under his spell and keeps wanting to know what happens to him/he does and I could not help a little guilty because of this: For caring to know more about this obsessed man who preys on young girls. It made me feel like as if I were some kind of accomplice, which is what Humbert was trying to do, I believe, when he addressed to the 'reader'. What is very interesting in my eyes that even though he keeps addressing to the reader, offering explanations, Humbert is well aware that his actions are not acceptable. He does feel guilty (I don't mean that this makes it all OK).

I agree with XC that the sense of detachment is part of Nabokov's style rather than lack of emphathy. The book is not devoid of emotions but while dealing with a sensitive issue like this (not to mention the fact that it was written about 50 years ago), he needed to put a distance between himself and the narrator. I think that is one of the reasons he might have prefered first person point of view.

What do you think of the ending? The fact that he stopped pursuing Lolita when she told him that she does not want to go away with him? Has he stopped objectifying her?

Is Humbert really a paedophile?

I've always viewed Quilty as the real villain in this book. Humbert is seduced by Lolita, not the other way around, but there are many hints that Quilty was the original seducer, even though it is never explicitly stated (unless my memory of the book deceives me.) I personally think that he was definitely the original serpent in Lolita's garden.

Would she have seduced Humbert if she hadn't already experienced a physical relationship? I'm not sure that she would - the relationship might have been just a 'normal' teenage crush, never consummated. Paedophiles actively 'groom' children and are cunning and proactive in the ways that they engineer opportunities for sex with them. They also tend to implicate the child into the crime, playing on their immature logic - "If you tell anyone, you'll be in trouble." None of this sounds like Humbert.

It is also worth bearing in mind when judging Humbert, that Lolita is not physically immature. She is legally a child but physically a woman. Had this been otherwise, the book would almost certainly have been banned outright. There is nothing to suggest that Humbert is attracted to Lolita because of her age, rather it is her precocious beauty and maturity that attracts him. In this respect, he is not really a classic paedophile either; they seek out sexually immature children in the main.

Humbert is not a paedophile, just a morally weak man. He is physically attracted to Lolita (as many of us probably would be) and when the opportunity for a sexual relationship is presented to him, on a plate as it were, he is unable to resist, despite the fact that he knows her age, knows the law, and feels that it is a wrong thing to do. Remember that the age of consent is a human construct, and variable from country to country and from time to time. Juliet was only 13. Were Romeo and Paris paedophiles?

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Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

Humbert is not a paedophile, just a morally weak man. He is physically attracted to Lolita (as many of us probably would be) and when the opportunity for a sexual relationship is presented to him, on a plate as it were, he is unable to resist, despite the fact that he knows her age, knows the law, and feels that it is a wrong thing to do. Remember that the age of consent is a human construct, and variable from country to country and from time to time. Juliet was only 13. Were Romeo and Paris paedophiles?

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I don't agree with you on this, he is not attracted only to Lolita as he suggests throughout the novel that he had sex with more than one "nymphet". If anything he is attracted to and frustrated by his Annabel experience. This story takes place in midtwentieth century, when does "Romeo and Juliet" take place? Sixteenth century, maybe before. I can't remember exactly. Anyway, the point is you really shouldn't compare those two situations. Humbert Humbert recognises the fact that he acts in an immoral way throughout the novel.

What does it matter if English is his first or second language, lets not miss the point here. The first chapter of "Lolita" is simply one of the greatest bits of literature ever. The first time I read the book I had to read the first chapter three times before continuing because it was so beautifully written.

Emily, somebody has to take the trash out. I think Nabokov was brave to tackle this subject and you're right it is disturbing as he doesn't tend to judge his main character who often resorts to humour, all the while accepting the fact that he is a pervert...a deviant.

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Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

I've always viewed Quilty as the real villain in this book. Humbert is seduced by Lolita, not the other way around, but there are many hints that Quilty was the original seducer, even though it is never explicitly stated (unless my memory of the book deceives me.) I personally think that he was definitely the original serpent in Lolita's garden.

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I agree that Quilty is the real villain in the book simply because he never admits that his actions are not acceptable and have negative effect on the lives of others. He never seems to show any remorse and, what is worse, when faced by Humbert, he tries to bribe/seduce him as well.

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Originally Posted by XC

Would she have seduced Humbert if she hadn't already experienced a physical relationship? I'm not sure that she would - the relationship might have been just a 'normal' teenage crush, never consummated. Paedophiles actively 'groom' children and are cunning and proactive in the ways that they engineer opportunities for sex with them. They also tend to implicate the child into the crime, playing on their immature logic - "If you tell anyone, you'll be in trouble." None of this sounds like Humbert.

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Humbert does actively goes after Lolita. He plans her mother's murder to be able to stay alone with her; he kidnaps her; he buys her gifts to impress her; he drugs her to be able to have sex with her; after their relationship is consumated, he keeps reminding her that if she tells others, he will be sent to prison and she, into fostercare.

If Lolita hadn't initiated their initial intercourse (please keep in mind that we have only Humbert's word for this, who is not the most reliable of sources), he was going to get his way at all cost.

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Originally Posted by XC

And It is also worth bearing in mind when judging Humbert, that Lolita is not physically immature. She is legally a child but physically a woman. Had this been otherwise, the book would almost certainly have been banned outright. There is nothing to suggest that Humbert is attracted to Lolita because of her age, rather it is her precocious beauty and maturity that attracts him. In this respect, he is not really a classic paedophile either; they seek out sexually immature children in the main.

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Lolita might be physically 'mature' (are you refering to the fact that she had already had sex with another boy with this remark?), she is still a 12 year old, who is not mentally, psychologically mature enough to be in such a relationship. What's more, I don't think apart from her youth and beauty, there is much he likes about her. He is not happy with her vulgar language, fondness for the fashionable music etc and is always trying to 'cultivate' her mind by buying her books (arts, botanics) and insists she learns how to play tennis 'right'.

There is everything to suggest that he is attracted to her because of her age. From the very first page of the book, Humbert admits that he has been attracted to 'nymphets' (he defines them as girls between 9-14) and he admits that once Lolita gets older and start looking like a 'woman', he is more than likely to lose his interest in her. Before and after Lolita, he is still attracted to other 'nymphets' and tries his best to be close to them/touch them.

I would also like to point out that Humbert does not know about Lolita's escapades with Charlie in the summer camp till she admits it on the eve of their first intercourse and he does express some kind of disappointment over that.

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Originally Posted by XC

Humbert is not a paedophile, just a morally weak man. He is physically attracted to Lolita (as many of us probably would be) and when the opportunity for a sexual relationship is presented to him, on a plate as it were, he is unable to resist, despite the fact that he knows her age, knows the law, and feels that it is a wrong thing to do. Remember that the age of consent is a human construct, and variable from country to country and from time to time. Juliet was only 13. Were Romeo and Paris paedophiles?

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Humbert is a paedophile and morally weak (he doesn't hesitate to plan her mother's murder to get closer to Lolita!). He actively plans to be with her and pursues her to the bitter end. He is deceitful and cunning. I think the only saving grace for Humbert is that, unlike Quilty, he admits that what he did was wrong and feels bad about it. Also, the fact that he still wants to be with her after she grows up and is pregnant, shows that he has actually loved her.

As for Romeo and Juliet, they do not choose Juliet because she is 13. They do not do this illegally (no kidnapping, drugging, intending murder her mother, threatening). We need to keep in mind the cultural and moral differences of the time.

My grandmother was 14 when she got married.

That's the trouble with commenting on a book you haven't read for years. You forget stuff. I'll admit that Humbert is a lot closer to the classic paedophile than I earlier claimed. But I still think he falls just a little short. He's half way between a true paedophile and Peter Stringfellow in my book.

But I think I'm right in saying (and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm not!) that the kidnapping, murder and drugging all take place after the initial seduction. Humbert is attracted to very young women - very young indeed! - but not pre-pubescent girls.
What Humbert dislikes in Lolita are the things that he discovers as he gets to know her better. He wants a sophisticated woman in the body of a nymphet - such creatures don't exist.
Of course she is not emotionally and mentally mature at 12 - most people aren't at 20, let's face it! But, from the descriptions of her, she is physically mature. It's not that long ago that she could be married at that age - in some parts of the world, she still could be (this was the only reason that I mentioned R & J).

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

are you refering to the fact that she had already had sex with another boy with this remark?

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I was actually referring to the fact that I believe that Quilty had already seduced her. It is obvious that she was seeing him behind Humberts back during their flight together - I think it started much sooner. Of course, I only have little hints to base this on, because our narrator was in denial about a lot of things.

that almost moves me to tears ... otherwise I refrain from watching romantic movies or reading romantic books. Too often, too many of them get corny.

Well only poor Humbert is in love but anyway. Nabokov"s writing never gets filthy and repulsive, of course the prude moral apostle would argue otherwise but he would in any case, irregardless of the truth inherent in the book and its literary value.

Hi Guys.
Bought this a while back, and I have just recently decided to read it.
I had first found a library edition and sat for a half hour through the first chapter, hence the reason I now want a first edition :D
I was instantly taken with the writing style, and now that I'm reading it again, I am reminded of why I liked the books in the first place.
Anyways, questions.
Has anybody else read this book? And if so, what did you think?
Do you think H,H, is a monster, or an a victim of his own past?
Do you think Dolores Haze was partly responsible, considering her attitudes behaviour and actions?


Looking forward to some good feedback.
Shizz.

I'll save you a bit of time - there was a similar thread a few months back - see HERE.

And you are right, the writing is unbelievably good.

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Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

Is Humbert really a paedophile?

I've always viewed Quilty as the real villain in this book. Humbert is seduced by Lolita, not the other way around, but there are many hints that Quilty was the original seducer, even though it is never explicitly stated (unless my memory of the book deceives me.) I personally think that he was definitely the original serpent in Lolita's garden.

Would she have seduced Humbert if she hadn't already experienced a physical relationship? I'm not sure that she would - the relationship might have been just a 'normal' teenage crush, never consummated. Paedophiles actively 'groom' children and are cunning and proactive in the ways that they engineer opportunities for sex with them. They also tend to implicate the child into the crime, playing on their immature logic - "If you tell anyone, you'll be in trouble." None of this sounds like Humbert.

It is also worth bearing in mind when judging Humbert, that Lolita is not physically immature. She is legally a child but physically a woman. Had this been otherwise, the book would almost certainly have been banned outright. There is nothing to suggest that Humbert is attracted to Lolita because of her age, rather it is her precocious beauty and maturity that attracts him. In this respect, he is not really a classic paedophile either; they seek out sexually immature children in the main.

Humbert is not a paedophile, just a morally weak man. He is physically attracted to Lolita (as many of us probably would be) and when the opportunity for a sexual relationship is presented to him, on a plate as it were, he is unable to resist, despite the fact that he knows her age, knows the law, and feels that it is a wrong thing to do. Remember that the age of consent is a human construct, and variable from country to country and from time to time. Juliet was only 13. Were Romeo and Paris paedophiles?

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Well said Xam.

I think to understand Humbert's Character we must understand what made Humbert a Pedophiliac in the first instance. Humbert could have quiet easily gone on to lead a totally ordinary life, if not for that fateful meeting with Annabel Leigh - Pronounced - Lee. Hence Do - Lo- Res -Lee- Ta - (If I remember correctly the Ta comes from a girl he once fanticized about).

This meeting would change his life forever, because he fell quite madly in love with Annabel, and both were deeply driven to consumate that enflamed passion. Though they both were denied at every turn.

When Annabel died, Edward Humbert was left with a burning unfounded passion for a love that could never be.
Hence, while he aged his ideal lover stayed both the same age, and general description of Annabel Leigh.

He was so in love with her, so in love with her spirit and the love they never had, that he was forever searching for a girl of roughly the same age, same description, in which he could take out his feelings of pent up passion and frustration. He found this in Dolores Haze.

Note: Dolores starts out as a twelve year old, and leave Humbert when she is fifteen. Humbert evinces in his journal that he was planning on taking her over the border to Mexico and marrying her, where the legal age/people were different.

The story itself is sad, and I completely agree that Quilty is indeed the true villian. Lolita, was a victim of Humbert's love. Humbert himself was a victim of his own love, and past. Both are in my mind to be pitied equally.

Shizz.


:banana:

Thanks Shizz,

It's nice to know I wasn't completely wrong in my opinions (or at least to know that there are others that share my delusions).

I've read Nabokov in Russian. His Russian is beautiful and I enjoyed the richness of his works, but it wasn't an easy read at all for me- some of his sentences were endless.

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Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

But I think I'm right in saying (and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm not!) that the kidnapping, murder and drugging all take place after the initial seduction.

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Actually, they take place before the seduction. He plans the mother's murder and later on, when he 'kidnaps' her, tries to drug her to be able to seduce her.

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But, from the descriptions of her, she is physically mature.

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I think he mentions that once she starts to develop physically, he would lose interest in her.

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I was actually referring to the fact that I believe that Quilty had already seduced her. It is obvious that she was seeing him behind Humberts back during their flight together - I think it started much sooner. Of course, I only have little hints to base this on, because our narrator was in denial about a lot of things.

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I agree with this. I think she had started 'seeing' him during their play at school - before Humbert takes her for their final journey together (I think Humbert gets suspicious and decides to take her away anyway).

Theshizznigg>I am sorry but I can't see the point you are trying to make (it is after 3 am here! :)). We all agree, I assume, that Humbert's obsession with young girl starts with Annabel Leigh. Are you suggesting that he finds a replacement in Dolores and that is all? I would disagree with that because even when he is with Dolores, he encourages her to invite her friends over so that he can look up their skirts (if not touch) whenever possible. He is not satisfied only with Dolores and definitely does not stop there.

I would also like to repeat that:

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

Humbert is a paedophile and morally weak (he doesn't hesitate to plan her mother's murder to get closer to Lolita!). He actively plans to be with her and pursues her to the bitter end. He is deceitful and cunning. I think the only saving grace for Humbert is that, unlike Quilty, he admits that what he did was wrong and feels bad about it. Also, the fact that he still wants to be with her after she grows up and is pregnant, shows that he has actually loved her.

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I think Lolita strictly from a literary view, is a well-written and very evocative novel. From a personal standpoint, it repulses me. Simply because a 12 year old looks like a woman does not equip her with maturity, nor the ability to deal with Humbert on an adult level, which is, of course, part of her appeal.

He seems quite repulsed by Lolita's mother and uses her simply to get to the child ( I am sorry , I have a hard time thinking of a 12 year old as a woman).Also, as Scheherazade says, he plans the mother's murder with nary a qualm. As well written as this book is, it is one I cannot bear to read again.

I think that Lolita is easier to read and understand on a symbolic level than on a literal level. In "Pale Fire" Nabokov referred to "Lolita" as "The Cup of Hebe" by John Shade, as one example.

Either way the conversation goes, I find it most unfortunate when someone, (and I was included in this group) is reading Lolita, and then those around him/her accuse them of reading something that promotes pedophilia, and then they usually go into the whole speal of how the books is wrong, and you shouldn't read it.
By the end of it, I started asking people, "Have you read this book?" And when they answered no, I replied. "Then you are in no position to criticize it, when you have deemed to read it, then damn it all you wish."
Usually this leaves people stunned, and they solemnly retreat to making jives, and off hand comments.

All I really have to say toward the whole, is it ethical idea. It comes down to the freedom of choice and the freedom of free speech.
The writer of the book was willing to stake his reputation on the book, and those who are not afraid of the stigma surrounding the book, have read it time and time again.
It is a book, nothing more and nothing less.